For the Foreseeable Future
by leaflover
Summary: Following their father, Itachi and Sasuke's mother dies, leaving the two of them alone to navigate their new adulthood. Itachi invites Sasuke to live with him, and they restart their youthful love affair. Together, they work through the complicated reality of a forbidden relationship such as theirs as the world presses from all sides.


Wireless speakers chimed a synthesized bell tone, and somehow this congregation managed not to laugh. The general mood was somber, and the only way to tell the difference between this Catholic group and any other were the wailing women, mourning the loss of a widow that few of them truly knew. Mikoto Uchiha was a trophy wife whose singular goal in life was fulfilled the day that she brought her first son into the world. Out of time, she reveled in the strict household of her husband Fugaku, and let most of the punishment fall on him while she played the doting, supportive role. Though it seemed imbalanced to every onlooker including her children, he and she felt privately that their marriage was the best that ever was.

Because her life was so focused on the household, the congregates knew her scarcely outside events for her husband's company, of which he was a Vice President, and events for the elite private school which her children had attended. Most of the wails were faked, and most of the condolences were transitionary, the mourners hoping that Fugaku's boys would remember them in their rise to the top. Itachi, who had just graduated with his undergraduate degree, had already been promised a prominent position that set him up early to become Vice-President, the position he was expected to occupy for the rest of his life.

Itachi saw through the nonsense, though, and only returned expressionless thank-yous and handshakes. His father's importance ensured that the line was endless. Sasuke tried to maintain an expression similar to Itachi's, but the result was dark, and unnerved most. Some saw intense grief threatening to inwardly decompose, others saw anger directed outward. The truth was neither, Sasuke felt quite detached from the service. It hadn't yet registered to him that this was a social process that followed the death of his mother, on which he dwelled. Itachi had called it brooding, and told him to snap out of it before the service, but as usual his silly brother was overcome by an overactive heart. The effusions of this organ could be read too many ways, and posed a threat to Sasuke's future prospects. Itachi was thankful, at least, that he had been able to clean Sasuke up enough to present him.

The service droned, as all Catholic services do to those who do not regularly attend. When it came time for the eulogies, the expected things were said and the expected tears were shed. Mikoto was called varieties of "pillar" and "model" with no reference to the shape. Sasuke stopped listening by the first speaker's second line. It wasn't until Itachi's eulogy that he reengaged.

Itachi spoke about his mother's gentle and loving qualities, as well as the strength with which she bore the early death of her husband, and the shouldering of two parental roles. He raised her up without revealing intimate detail, and the most genuine emotion felt that day was felt when the congregates began to see glimpses of her true character.

For Sasuke, though, the only one who understood the hidden references to idyllic times, the emotion was overpowering. He strode from the hall, face darkening until he burst out a door that led to the church's back. Itachi finished his eulogy as the door clicked, and he ended, "Excuse me, please continue," before walking in the direction of the door.

His cousin, Shisui, met him at the door. "Do you need anything?"

"Just don't let anybody out. I need to talk to him alone."

Sasuke sat with his back to a concrete wall. The wall was cold and firm, which was comforting to him. Still, he buried his face in his hands and shook. Itachi found him like this, and sat with him, putting his arm around his brother's back.

The shock that Sasuke felt made him rigid, and seeing that he had the opposite effect intended, Itachi withdrew himself. "Sasuke, we're needed in there," he said thoughtlessly.

After a moment came, "I know." Itachi rose, and put out his hand, but Sasuke didn't take it. He pulled up his legs and buried his face in them. "I'll come in when I'm ready." His voice cracked.

"I'll wait here with you."

"You need to keep up appearances," Sasuke insisted. "Just go."

"I have kept them up. It's you that's at mess."

Sasuke laughed bitterly. "Yea, I suppose I've probably fucked any chances I had of getting into the company. Did you see the way they looked at me?" He showed his face, which was puffy. "You know what? Fuck them. I don't need them. I'll figure something else out."

"You'll always have a home with me." Sasuke looked at him in disbelief. "Sasuke, you're my brother. I want to take care of you, and now I can."

"Itachi? Are you asking what I think you're asking?"

Itachi wrapped his arms around his little brother's waist and kissed his forehead. "It's just you and me, now." Sasuke welled with emotion, and allowed memories to flood back to him that he had banished. Touches, kisses, private walks, the collective power that they held over him cracked the surface and he finally, fully considered a life with Itachi that could be.

For Itachi, who had not exiled that part of himself that loved the unlovable, but had held it hidden in his hands, looking at it, listening to it, licking it whenever the fancy struck, this moment felt like the culmination of an effort, the grace that comes from fasting. He felt satisfaction at the image finally becoming a reality, and to commemorate he kissed his brother full on the mouth, gingerly and without tongue, like he was holding an unstained virgin.

Though he knew that he did not. Sasuke's innocence had long taken flight, and it was only with practice that Itachi could see it eternally on the horizon, and by stepping forward, following it. Its color and shape were known to him, and he had an intense memory of the feel of its downy feathers. As the light of a sunset shone through them, he felt himself well with nameless feeling, and sought the memories out with the precision of a path often trod.

Itachi guided Sasuke's chin with his thumb and index-finger, slowly, but with deliberate purpose. Sasuke felt his burdens shed one layer at a time, he let all the other people go away, and put himself at the gentle mercy of Itachi's touch. Sasuke's soft skin sent electrical stimulus through his brother's hand, and he became conscious of the power that they contained. His arm directly felt the pulse, then it spread further. Goosebumps rose on Itachi's arm, created by the excess of powerful emotion that Itachi's makeup most frequently went without.

This is better than memory and dreams, both reflected. Presence is always best when real and new, and perhaps better when new again.

"Sasuke," his voice loaded with all that he wished to communicate, the revelry in the once again, the sequel to once upon a time that tragic fairy tales and myths never seem to get.

"I love you," chimed his voice, like a songbird.

Itachi could hold back no more. He kissed his brother as their location screamed out at him not to. The open sky, the concrete church, the mournful synthetic chimes, all wedged themselves between his two realizations and tried to bolster the one created by Reason. In all things else that side dominated him to a fault, but not in this.

Sasuke cared less for these things. He fell into his brother fully and without restraint, trusting in his sense of prudence and propriety. And what a wonderful feeling there was in that trust! Without a need for worry, Sasuke could jump from the tallest height with the full knowledge that Itachi would slow his fall and catch him with that mysterious force that created good decisions. Nothing is as exciting as falling from a great height when it is known that there is no danger of falling!

And Itachi, good on that trust, broke off the kiss soon after it began; as soft a break as it was abrupt. Immediately regret welled in him, and a third presence, a mere phantom, began to demand the most sincere guilt from him. In the combination of ecstasy and this, he drew his brother into his arms and embraced him in full, possessing him and comforting him. But Sasuke had no more need of comfort; the kiss returned him fully to his strength and he felt he could return to the church as soon as his brother had no more need of him.

Their absence was short, and almost entirely forgotten within a few weeks. Only a few gossips, and fewer that were genuinely concerned, remembered the short occurrence. Much more in people's minds was Sasuke's intensity. Nobody thought badly of him for it, it was well known that Mikoto doted on her boys, sheltered them, and as such was much depended on by them. But on the same token, nobody wanted to hire someone who felt so intensely and displayed it so publically, even at the funeral of his much too young mother. They knew he'd be unreliable, especially in the case of his brother's potential death, or even a close friend.

Businessmen are not heartless unless they are doing business, and though they expressed genuine pity for the boy, and resolved to arm their children against such effusion and dependence to spare them, this did not help Sasuke's career prospects at all. The role that he had been groomed for since birth was no longer a possibility, and pity couldn't change that. Still, pity feels like an action, and allowance, in the minds of businessmen, and so they felt that their part was played.

And do not think Itachi is somehow better than these men because he is our protagonist. He would treat any grieving son the same way because that man's mistakes would be his own in the eyes of his peers and superiors. For this same reason, he was reluctant to let Sasuke join his staff.

This was not the only reason, however. He had believed for a longer time that Sasuke and the business world would not mix. This was not derision on his part, he loved most things about Sasuke, and the parts of his personality which made him and business incompatible were the same parts that made him a thing to be cherished. He had always known that Sasuke would be better suited for the arts and the humanities, and with Sasuke's freshman year in college approaching, Itachi morbidly reflected that his mother's unfortunate death came at a convenient time. He immediately recoiled from the thought, feeling a brief need to be sick.

His pain must have showed, because his coworker asked him, "Itachi, you alright?"

He regained his composure, and continued eating lunch; a fine fish and vegetable platter accompanied by a chilled white wine. "Yes, I'm fine."

Kisame eyed him warily for a moment, but got over it when he continued to eat his steak (the third that week). "So, got anything going on this weekend, or are we good for drinks?"

"Yes, my younger brother is moving in. He's been living at home for the past few weeks. I've already cleared the space for him."

"Oh really? I'm surprised you waited so long for him to move in. It's been what, a few weeks now?" Kisame was blunt when he wasn't on the job, something Itachi appreciated. With some of his coworkers, he felt that he was constantly the audience of a performance while also being under scrutiny. Kisame just sounded curious.

"I wanted him to keep the appointments that he made, and to spend the remainder of his last summer with his friends. He fought me a little, but I think that he was afraid of regretting. He still sulked for about two weeks, though."

"All things considered, that seems pretty good. From what you've told me he's not, how to say, temperate. And he didn't look good at the funeral."

"No, he didn't. He wasn't, trust me. I barely got him together for it."

"He doesn't have much of a future with us, does he?"

"I've told you all along I didn't want him to. He'll be much better off studying what he wants in college and getting work at one of our non-profits."

"Oh, he'll help people? How nice." Itachi saw that he had said too much, and restrained himself after that. Kisame was one of the better people he worked with, but he was still one of them. He didn't have his eye on the horizon, he had it on his dick and in his wallet.

Itachi tipped for the both of them, letting Kisame take advantage of his generosity in return for silent friendship. Everything was transactional in this world.

Away from the high-rises of Kohona, in a small suburb called The Sound, Sasuke Uchiha spent his last day with his friends. An avid reader, he had read many times that the pleasures of childhood end. It was a reality that he understood, and that his friends did not. He did not want them to, though. For him the knowledge was freeing, for them it would shackle. He had had time to prepare for it, years of reading, and he had already felt the first incursion of that weighty future. The knowledge that this last summer was an end was both cause for sadness and relief, and in finding himself ready to move on he also opened himself up to its most intense pleasures.

He shocked his friends by doing almost completely away with his aloofness, knowing that it didn't matter anymore, and suggesting that they relive their most memorable moments. They listened to over the top emo music, snuck onto the country club's golf course, and loudly rode bikes down the residential streets at the early hours of the morning.

But these activities did not shape Sasuke's mood the way that he wished they would. Underneath whatever happiness or nostalgia that he felt, his mother loomed. The feeling was incomplete. Every night he returned to his childhood house and felt the emptiness in it and was reminded of his youth's finality.

Sasuke spent a good deal of time in his mother's sitting room when he wasn't out. He read some of her favorite books, it was from her that he'd inherited his love of reading. She loved poetry, especially, old British poetry, so he honored her by reading her favorites; John Keats and Lord Byron.

But all through the readings, he couldn't ignore an anxious feeling that grew in him. It seized his attention, drawing out the reading process of one poem to lengths of an hour at times. Every few lines, a new sentiment reminded him of Itachi, and somehow of what he was about to do with him; to live with him as a lover, not a brother. Somehow, it made him feel earthy, and in stark opposition to his radiant mother.

When Itachi came for him, Sasuke was not his normal self. The bipolar experience he'd lived for the last few weeks of summer had created a tiredness in him. He seemed ready to leave. Itachi was disappointed, and saw in the future only a continued lethargy.

"We should sell the house."

Itachi looked at his brother with wonder. "Why do you want to do that?"

"We don't need it anymore. You have a big apartment in the city, that's enough for us. Do we really need a big house back here? That's a lot of upkeep."

"I can afford it easily, Sasuke. Dad paid the mortgage off, all I have left to pay are property taxes and utilities."

"Well keep me out of it," Sasuke said, animated. "At this point, I just want to move on. This whole damn town is behind me now."

Itachi placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, careful to keep it fraternal lest the driver get suspicious. "You feel that way now," he said. "But give it time." Itachi knew his misspoke as his brother bristled, and he withdrew his hand. His voice dropped to its normal tone as he said, "You just need some time away."

"You shouldn't have made me stay."

"Maybe not." Itachi took a deep breath. "But now, let's put that behind us. You're about to start a new life. You can major in whatever you want in college, no worries about what I'll think. And you'll live with me. It'll be better than whatever these few weeks were."

Sasuke nodded, though still he seemed unsure. What Itachi described sounded like heaven, the answer to his every problem. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in Itachi's arms and sit there, talking about everything that made him upset in that moment. But the driver was there, and his eyes were already curious.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it. It's a little fucked up, but that's just uchihacest for you. It's filled with little paradoxes and confusions that go a long way to create its beauty (and tragedy). I intend to explore as many of those as I can for you lovely readers.

Please review for me. Thanks so much.


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